The Broadcasting Authority is reaping what it unwisely sowed. At the beginning of the year, it declared that 'spots' placed by the Malta-EU Information Centre did not constitute an imbalance. This was in answer to requests by the Malta Labour Party to broadcast EU, or non-EU 'spots' on TVM, Malta's public broadcasting station (PBS), on the grounds that the MIC 'spots' were creating an imbalance that had to be redressed.
A few months later, the BA revised its opinion and ordered PBS not only to broadcast MLP 'spots' to balance out MIC's balanced information 'spots' but also to do so free of charge within its restricted advertising time! MIC pays for its 'spots'. PBS took the matter before the court, which found against it. PBS has since appealed against the court's decision.
That decision has not yet been made. In the meantime, PBS has been producing MLP 'spots' without charge. Quite apart from the intrinsic merits or demerits of the case, the BA's change of mind has opened up something like a Pandora's box. Everybody else with a political interest in the EU issue is demanding the same treatment as afforded by the Authority to the Malta Labour Party.
Many see this development as reasonable. The Nationalist Party and Alternattiva Demokratika are insisting that they be allowed their own 'spots' to provide what they see as the balance necessitated by the imbalance caused by the court's decision. The Broadcasting Authority does not seem to be countenancing any of these requests. It is not only the parties involved that are questioning this logic.
PBS has its own corner to defend. It argues, coherently, that by having to show the MLP 'spots' at a time reserved by the company for advertising and free of any charge, its income will drop by many thousands of Maltese liri. It is a commercial point that cannot be dismissed as if it were nothing of the sort.
PBS also claims that going along with the court's decision means that the company will break agreements made by advertising agencies which have already booked advertising time on the station.
Central to the issue is whether MIC 'spots' are informative in character or political in nature. Anybody who has followed them can vouch for the fact that they are a model of the former. The same, many argue, cannot be said of the MLP version. These often have nothing to do with 'facts', as required by the BA, but represent a wish-list of what partnership with the European Union will be about.
The situation is one that requires a remedy, first by the courts and then by the Broadcasting Authority. The latter's swing from one end of the scale, specifically that MIC 'spots' are impartial and do not represent or create an imbalance, to another, that despite these facts the Malta labour Party should be given facilities to redress the imbalance that did not exist, has puzzled many.
It has certainly not amused the PN, AD, or the IVA Movement, all three of which are demanding a further redress, presumably at no charge to them by PBS. Should their requests, or demands be granted, these will add a further strain on the revenue of the public station.
Where all this will end, nobody knows. What the contestants for time on PBS are aware of is the fact that they are not being treated in the same way by the BA.